(Sorry there is still no paper map @PennyHarrison! I hope this will do for now. It’s the map from my bike computer. Maybe I’ll find an old fashioned kind, somewhere, someday, preferably before the end of this trip)

Last night as I sipped my beer and enjoyed the dazzling sunset, I decided I was ready for a break from camping, and booked a (relatively) cheap motel in Pocomoke, Maryland for the following night.

• Today’s Distance (miles): 62
• Time in saddle: 5h 03
• Max/min temp – in full sun (°c): 35°/21°
• Climbing (feet) : 493
• Calories used: 3,148
• Today’s 2nd Breakfast: Pancakes with fruit (plus unexpected eggs, hash brown and bacon), at Denny’s Ocean City Delaware
• Cafe time: 6h 20

Here’s the Relive video of today’s ride (see if you can spot the two occasions when I doubled back, once to find the bandana I dropped, and once to find the right motel!):

https://www.relive.cc/view/vdORQPVxdKv

(BOTH of my sons spotted a funny ‘loop’ in yesterday’s Relive, where in order to change highways I had to describe the shape of, er, a rocket ship. Thanks lads. I’m going to have to assume that they weren’t the only ones?)

There’s a lot of fun clips and links in the blog today – something for everyone I hope!

I awoke at 5am and was amazed at the humidity. Everything felt damp, including me and my lovely down sleeping bag, and the walls of the tent dripped if I touched them, even though I’d had the flysheet off all night. At that moment I very felt glad to have a nice motel room waiting for me at the end of the day, as a change of scene. I was about to try to go back to sleep when I thought, ‘Oh, I suppose I should check the radar’, and sure enough, rain was predicted within about an hour. So I packed up in the muggy half-light, surrounded by mozzies, and got going. The campground was my personal accommodation-nadir of the trip so far, so close on the heels of my favourite (tied with Searsport). There was no-one there when I arrived last night (I could have camped for free and they’d have been none the wiser), the place smelled terrible (revealed to be sewage in the wetlands, coming from a big pipe I cycled past as I left, with one hand over my nose), and the flyover/bridge creates an atmosphere that just makes you want to get away from there as fast as you can. The only redeeming features were a shower that worked, and the great evening I spent less than half a mile away next to the beach as the glorious sun set.

Within about 10 miles of cycling, just before Maryland Beach, I crossed over into Maryland itself. State No.9!

I’VE MADE IT TO MARYLAND:

Next it was the huge resort town of Ocean City, which was acre upon acre of diners, hotels & motels, souvenir shops, and restricted beach access. Seeing that rain was predicted, I decided to look out for somewhere to pull in for 2nd breakfast.

My waitress in Denny’s was from Montenegro and called Marlena. She was working for 3 months in the US on a Montenegran scheme called Work & Travel. The crazy thing is that she owns a campsite in Montenegro with her family, called Camp Oaza in Lipa, and I’m invited to stay there anytime!

https://youtube.com/shorts/qY3JUoMCzw8?feature=share

It looks such a beautiful place, with a stupendous view over the lake that separates Montenegro and Albania, Skadar Lake. The fried dough balls that appear in the video are a very local speciality, with soft fresh cheese or butter & marmalade/jam, and apparently irresistible. Marlena said people travel from all around just to eat these.

I sat looking out on a completely dry parking lot for an hour or so, wondering if the rain was all in my imagination. Should I stay or should I go?

In the end I decided to go, and within a few pedal strokes it started spitting with rain. You can’t get it right every time. At least it never really rained heavily, and afterwards the weather was perfect for cycling, overcast, cooler and a slight breeze.

I knuckled down to some solid cycling after Ocean City, following the 50 and 113 highways south. It was wide open and rural, with few features apart from farms, but a good wide road for bikes. It gave me the chance to think about the way that the land along the coast has been so monetised. Every block is a plethora of diners, fast food places, bars and theme parks. It’s providing things that everyone, including me, is glad of from time to time, but it feels like the character of the land itself has been wiped away in the process, to make room for businesses, parking lots, drive thrus and hotels. There’s a deeply ironic song that often springs to my mind when I’m feeling like this. It’s by Talking Heads, and it imagines the whole thing in reverse, where David Byrne is missing all of those commercial places, because the land has been turned into a ‘garden of eden’. He sings ‘This was a Pizza Hut, now it’s all covered with daisies’. Have a listen to (Nothing But) Flowers:

At a coffee stop in Snow Hill, which is just at the start of the Pocomoke State Forest, I met a lovely couple, Dave & Shelley, who invited me to sit at their table because the place was full. After asking what on earth I was doing in Snow Hill, they told me all about the amazing wild ponies that the area is famous for, and of course I told them about those pesky wild ponies back home in the New Forest. Dave & Shelley had set their alarm for 4am and spent the morning down on Chincoteague Island – which is about 30 miles from here on the coast – watching the horses being corralled along the beach, and told me that this Wednesday, when the tide is lowest, the horses will be given a sea swim. I’m not quite sure why. Then there’s an auction where the colts go for $6-7k, but if they’re sold with rights to stay on the island, they can go for $40-100k! Again, the reason escaped me. Anyway, D&S are going to be watching that bit from a friend’s boat. Here’s an unusual bit of video of last year’s pony-sea-swim:

Meeting people like these two and just chatting, in a McDonald’s chosen at random for just being there, always makes me think again about just how many people there are in the world, and how little we can ever know of most of them. Given a little space to tell a stranger something about themselves, knowing that this is a fleeting moment, most people come up with something interesting. It’s incredible really.

With the sun outside beating down, I lingered a little longer than planned just to stay cool a little longer too. I’m heading gradually down the ever-narrowing strip of land that separates the mighty Chesapeake Bay from the ocean, towards the moment where I have to find a way to cross the Robert O. Norris Jnr Bridge across the whole bay, a bridge that, just like the Confederation Bridge to Prince Edward Island in Canada, does not allow bicycles. Don’t worry (as if you did for even a moment), there is an alternative. More tomorrow. Or the day after. Yes, probably the day after.

The last stage of the day was really beautiful, through dense woodland on a wide highway, mainly though the Pocomoke State Park. Maryland has felt like a complete change of terrain to me, and I thoroughly enjoyed it today. And that includes the change in local accent, which has an attractive southern ring to it.

There were really only two flies in the ointment today. The first was a bag of newly-acquired food that I inadvertently donated to Ocean City (it slipped out of my carefully-tied knot on the back of the bike), and the second one was that I’d saved the wrong motel on google maps, so I had to retrace my route a couple of miles in Pocomoke to the one I’d actually booked. It’s so nice to have a change of home for a night – in fact for two nights, because I’ve had to book another motel tomorrow due to lack of camping options. What a hardship. This one tonight has a pool too, and free breakfast. See you sometime on Tuesday everybody!

WITH A LITTLE LONG-DISTANCE HELP FROM MY FAMILY: I asked Sam & Jacob if they knew a good way to ask a simple yes/no question as a sort of straw poll online, because of something I’m hatching for the blog. However, because Siri sent the message, the words got a bit mangled. Instead of asking ‘Is there such a thing?’ Siri asked ‘Is there such strange?’ Both of our lads responded immediately, with Jacob even making a simple example poll for me:

LOBSTERS TAKING OVER THE WORLD: Just because we’re now in Maryland, it doesn’t seem to have done anything to stop the lobster insurgency. This one was trying to bust out of a theme park in Ocean City:

DOORS AS PORTALS: Jane Lodge, Amanda Jarvis and Sam Buckton get to share a packet of Minstrels for guessing the door-related film title – Monsters Inc.! (I think I’ll have give you a third each when I see each of you):

Sam B also pointed out that the Studio Gibli masterpiece, Howl’s Moving Castle, uses a similar ‘door-as-portal’ motif. Such a great film. (Maybe I’ll add a couple of extra minstrels to his haul)

WHAT IS IT SAM?

No photo, but I saw a couple of light brown birds flying alongside me briefly, with a very distinctive yellow edging to their tail feathers, like the shavings of a yellow pencil. Any ideas Sam? Anyone? It was out in the wetlands area, near reeds.

SHOCKING ABSENCE OF SIGNS THAT ARE FUNNY HITS ENGLISHMAN’S BIKE-BLOG – MORE AT 6